Big Barbecue

Our master suite on the second floor is doing well. The painter is moving right along with quality work. One of the really nice parts of his work is he works clean, picking up after himself. That is something we don't see with most Thai tradesman.

I used the title "Big Barbecue" in a kidding manor. The reason I said that is Daeng and I have an expression: "If you see smoke, let's stop and eat." The reason for that is we both like barbecued chicken and usually when you see smoke it is because someone is barbecuing.

We have laughed on a few occasions as we have seen smoke, stopped and found it was someone burning brush or trash. Most of the farmers use the cut and burn method of cleaning fields. What that means is after the rice has been removed in the harvest the rest is burned. I'm told that the ash is good for the soil, too.

For the last three days, Monks have been chanting next door as the Mother, age 83, died. Hundreds of people have been coming to her home, visiting with family members, eating and paying their respects.

That is a lot of dishes to wash from the hundreds of folks that come to pay their last respects.

Daeng has been helping out with the food and the feeding of these hundreds of folks. That is a pretty big core in itself. I don't quite understand but I'm told that how big a party you throw and how much you give to the temple makes a difference of were you will go in the next life.

We'll today was the last day of this ceremony. They closed off the street completely around 10:00 AM. We had just got back from buying more paint.

By the way, good paint is about the same price here as it is California. Maybe that's why they don't paint a lot here.

People started to arrive dressed in black, orange or white depending if they were Monks, close family or just mourners.

The only black shirt I have in my wardrobe has NA on it so I ask Daeng if that would be okay with black shoes, black socks and blue denim pants. She told me that would be fine as many other men would be waring bluejeans and black t-shirts.

I would guess that at least three hundred people, maybe more, showed up for the noon meal and service. Everyone eat and then the close family and the Monks went in two lines holding onto a ropes hooked to the truck that was loaded with the coffin and flowers. Kind of like they were pulling it. I think that was the way they did it in the old days.

They did this for about a fifty meters and then they jumped onto pick-ups, motorbikes or cars and drive to the cremation site. I had never visited one but had seen many along the roads. They look like little houses with big smoke stacks.

They are usually all by themselves with shaded sitting areas around this house and nothing else, no houses, etc., around them. I'm told that people don't want to live or be around these crematoriums as they feel ghosts are there.

We followed the sound truck, the pick-up with the speakers and sound system, to the barbecue site. It was out in the country on the west side of this little border town. Sure enough, a little house with a big chimney and hundreds of places to sit.

The truck with the flowers and casket pulled up and parked by the front stairs and set up for some sort of service. I wish I could understand more Thai. I think they were praying and different people from different parts of the village giving envelopes with money as offerings.

One Monk threw these things that looked like Hersey Candy Kisses. They were coins wrapped in gold covered paper. I'm told that some of the papers had a number written on it and if you got one you won that amount of money.

After many pictures of family and friends a large group of people, I guess anyone that wanted to, picked up the casket and flowers and carried them up into the crematorium.

Then everyone filed up the front stairs to pay their last respects to this lady, who I'm told, that had lived here all her life. Each person placed a kind of paper and bamboo, hand made flower by the casket in the crematorium. Then the men came down the steps on the right and the ladies used the steps on the left.

A lot of people left at that time but a few members stayed to watch the fire being lite. Charcoal was being used.

When the smoke started coming out of the chimney we all started to leave.

Daeng got upset at me as I started to pick up a cigarette that a young Monk had thrown on the ground and give it back to him. She said I should not do that as I wasn't the "Don't trash Thailand Police!"

It definitely was a Big Barbecue.